in this case to write the checks to pay the bills that are already incurred by your democratically elected congress. now that we've hit the debt limit, exceeded it a little bit, the treasury has two options. they can fiddle around with $200 billion the way you would if you're a little short on your monthly bills, paying some now, refinancing a little bit. that would get us through mid-february to early march. once that stops working the treasury needs to rely on the cash it has on hand and the revenue that comes in each day from taxes. problem is there isn't always that much cash on hand or enough money coming in on most days to cover the expenses. if there were, we wouldn't have a deficit. let me give you an example. one day as an example. february 15th. i choose that day because that might be the day, might be a little early but the day we stop being able to mess things around. federal government on that day will take in an estimated $9 billion in revenues. again, that is mostly taxes. on the same day, $52 billion will need to be paid out. a shortfall as you can see of $43 billion. so th